


Frost Dreams

by Lirony



Category: Vocaloid
Genre: AU, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Foreplay, Human AU, I know what it looks like, Illustrations, M/M, Magic, Porn With Plot, Romance, Slash, Smut, Switching, Vanilla, blowjob, by me, finished but I'll edit this someday, not pwp I swear, slowburn? more like pouring rubbing alcohol on fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-09-18 02:54:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16986792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lirony/pseuds/Lirony
Summary: Kaito has always been able to see spirits, in spite of everyone else telling him that he is mad. When he meets, one winter night, handsome nature spirit Gakupo, he ends up giving in to his lust even if it is against everything he has been brought up to believe in. But when your whole life is built on the idea that you will never get what you want, a single taste of happiness can destroy everything you built - for the best or for the worth?





	1. The Apparition

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written any fanfiction in a while, but I have listened to Snowman by Halyosy (featuring Kaito) one too many times and I was in the mood for a story featuring a winter spirit. I'm not going to lie, this story is super self-indulgent, but I stand by it. I will do my best to entertain you guys with it. It will be quite short - so that I can finish it before I get started on another idea.

.

Kaito was sure that frost spirit would come back tonight.

He was waiting near the window, leaning against the wall in a way he hoped hid him at least partly from the view if one looked his way from outside. He had dimmed down the lights in his room by placing a screen in front of the fire and having put out all the candles. He had stared outside long enough to be able to see almost clearly with just the moon shining down on the snow outside. He was lucky that the night was clear because this time he was sure that he wouldn’t miss him.

His sister, Miku, always told him that he was too much of a dreamer, and had only reissued her judgement when Kaito had shared his excitement about this particular project. Frost spirits liking sweets? Ice creams? That was ridiculous, she told him. He was better off not wasting his sweet-making talent on some other delusion of his.

Moreover, Kaito knew that he often passed for a dreamer – or a lunatic – in the eyes of the village folks, but he saw what he saw, dammit. When he had said that there were little people in the woods, he meant it, or when he said that he had seen Mrs. Mary’s milk being stolen by a goblin, it’s because he had seen the little trickster enter her house. Just because he was the only one that saw them didn’t mean that they weren’t real.

Or so he told himself. He wasn’t crazy, right?

He had no way of proving by showing them to other people. He had tried already, and it had only confirmed to him what he knew already: that even if they wanted to believe, such as his sister when she had been small, there was no way they could share his visions. He had seen her look right through that same milk-stealing goblin and remaining perfectly unfazed by it.

He knew what everyone was expecting from him at this point: that he tried his best to blend in and pretend as if he was normal, that he ignored the creatures living around him. He tried his best when he was around others and had even become a master at pretending that the invisible beings weren’t all around him. But right now, he was alone in his house in the middle of the night, and he could do as he pleased. If he wanted to see with his own eyes a frost spirit enjoying ice cream, he would do so, and no one would stop him. Winter was a long and lonely, even more so since his sister had married and moved out, so at least thinking about the mysterious stranger kept him busy.

Despite his resolution, he found himself rubbing his eyes and yawning more than once. The soft sound of the fire burning, the coziness of his small room, the low light, all of that lured him into Morpheus’ arms. However, the thought of waking up the next day to find the pot empty and all his efforts vain yet again kept his resolve strong. Tonight would be the night where he would see the frost spirit again.

His heart lunged in his chest when he saw something move on the edge of his vision but he was soon deceived to find that it was only a fox. He sighed and forced himself to relax again. At least he was a little more awake now.

The fox sniffed the air, the ground, looked in the direction of the house and trotted towards the bowl.

That made Kaito jump to his feet and rush to the door. He was in such a hurry that he didn’t even stop to grab a coat on his way out but, at the time, he thought that he was only going out to chase away an impostor. Clad in little else but his slippers and his nightgown, Kaito burst out the door and ran towards the startled fox, that didn’t stick around a second longer.

“Shoo!” Cried the man, throwing a handful of snow at the retreating thief for good measure. “That’s not for you!”

The animal disappeared in the shade of the bare trees of the forest nearby, and Kaito was left standing all alone in the snow. There wasn’t a house nearby, only wilderness all the way down until the flat bottom of the valley, yet he felt a piercing gaze resting on him. He turned slowly.

Standing on the roof of the cottage, looking down at him, was the frost spirit.

He was as handsome as Kaito half-remembered, half imagined him to be, having only managed to glance at him once. His purple hair, long and tied up in a high ponytail, trailed behind him in the non-existent wind, and his skin shone with a glint that was purer than freshly fallen snow. He wore a large white mantle with a thick fur collar, that hung past his shoulders, and nothing beneath, leaving his neck and chest entirely bare save for a silver chain and a snowflake shaped pendant. Dark pants clung tightly around his waist, exposing just enough stomach so that it would be known that he had some definition to his abs. Black against his white coat, his legs were unbelievably long and ended with dark boots. Any human in his attire would have frozen to death a long time ago, but he seemed unaffected by the temperature.

Kaito stood with his mouth agape, forgetting the cold, for several long moments, unable to tear his eyes away from the spirit. The latter slowly rose his brows and tilted his head, and, as small as this gesture might be, it woke Kaito from his trance.

“Oh, you’re here—” blabbered the human. “I made this for you! Let me just…”

He turned to pick up the bowl, but before he could even lean over there was a great gush of cold wind, and the spirit was standing near him. Kaito cried out in surprise, startled.

“So, you _can_ see me.” The apparition’s voice was deep and even, soothing.

“Yes, well, I always could see beings like you, but—”

Long, elegant arms wrapped around him and large hands rested on the small of his back. Kaito found his chest pressed against the stranger’s chest, and there was nothing but the all-too-thin layer of his nightgown between the two. Even their faces were too close, and from such a distance the human couldn’t help but be hypnotized by the black irises that were so wide they seemed to want to swallow him whole.

“Wonderful,” whispered the spirit.

“What?”

The spirit lifted the man effortlessly, bringing their faces closer together. Their breath mingled. The stranger smelled of freshly fallen snow, and never had this scent been so intoxicating. Their lips joined. Kaito gasped, shivering as he was rendered powerless by the feeling of a soft tongue against his mouth. His hands shot up to grab the frost’s spirit bare shoulders. The coat closed around them both.

“So warm,” said the apparition, whispering against Kaito’s lips. “Forgive me.”

“Wait—” tried to protest the human, but then he was kissed again.

This time he moaned, and more warmth pooled lower south. The situation was becoming dangerous. Did he care? He couldn’t bring himself to when it felt so good. The hands on his back were stroking him gently through his clothes. One of them glided down until it was cupping one of his butt cheeks. The smooth cloth of the stranger’s pants rubbed against the human’s bare legs as he walked. Wait, where were they going?

“Let me in?” said the frost spirit, and Kaito realized that they were standing at the door of his house.

“Wait, this is going to fast,” replied the human. “Who are you, and what do you want?”

It was as if his words were pulling the spirit out of a trance. He blinked and set his charge back on the ground, but he still had one arm around the human, the other coming up from his butt to stroke his cheek.

“My name is Gakupo,” said the stranger. “Don’t be scared, pretty human. I will not hurt you.”

“I’m not scared,” said Kaito, holding his arm so that he would stop caressing him like a pet. “But you—why did you kiss me?”

As if that reminded him of what had just occurred, the spirit produced a deep, throaty moan, his eyes full of lust. The sound went straight to the human’s length, hardening it. He had to back up as far as he could with the little room he was given so that it wouldn’t press against the apparition’s thigh.

“Forgive me,” said Gakupo, feeling him shuffle away from his form, “but I need—Oh, you got to know how long and cold the winter is, every year, and you are a human that can see me, can _feel_ me. I need—I need you. Please, I am begging you.”

The begging wasn’t helping Kaito’s case, nor did Gakupo’s intense, hungry gaze. He had to look away. He didn’t think that in doing so he would be exposing his throat, or that the spirit would see that as an invitation, but he did. Cool lips traced the human’s pulsing artery, pressing against the heat, licking it as if it would be a treat. They both shared a moan when a thigh found its way between Kaito’s legs and pressed against his erection.

“You want me,” gasped Gakupo. “Oh, little human, tell me your name, let me inside your house.”

“Kaito,” said the latter. “It’s Kaito.” He shivered. “It’s cold here…”

“Let me love you on your bed, Kaito.”

“Yes…” he moaned, this time too far gone to care. “Yes, come on in.”

The door opened behind him, and a wave of heat wrapped around them both. The coat fell to the ground in a heap, soon joined by the nightgown. Kaito had no idea if he had taken it out on his own or with some help. Did it matter? They were kissing again, and the spirit’s lips were getting warmer with each moment he was devouring his. The human would have never thought that his passion for men would ever be returned like this by anyone, yet here he was. He was starting to get dizzy; he was weightless in the other’s arms, it all felt like a dream.

He felt his soft covers pressing against his bare back and looked up at Gakupo, that was kneeling between his legs. The latter, never taking his eyes off the human, pulled at his white gloves with his teeth and undid his hair, making it cascade on his shoulders. Those simple actions made Kaito pant heavily. The spirit didn’t resist the sight: he dove to kiss and lick his neck and shoulders.  

“Gakupo,” whispered the human, trying the name.

“Sweet Kaito. So soft and warm when the world is harsh and cold… hold yourself close to me.”

Kaito was only too happy to comply. Wrapping his legs around his lover’s waist, he gasped in surprise when he found a hard length caught in the tight pants, a length that throbbed against his own. This was all so new to him, yet he wasn’t scared. Should he be scared?

“Sweet—” said Gakupo when both their hips ground together. “Oh, you have no idea how lovely you are.”

“You’re beautiful.” The human stroked the spirit’s cheek. “I can’t think straight.”

“I _hope_ you can’t think straight.” He said with an amused glint in his eyes. He seemed to have made a joke, but Kaito didn’t get it. “Never mind.”

The human gasped when his lover’s hand glided against his length to open the pants and then gasped again when both their sexes rubbed against each other. The same lukewarm hand cupped them and began to stroke them slowly, soon joined by Kaito’s. They moaned in unison.

“Is that how men love each other?” asked the human.

“One of the ways.”

“Let me see.”

Gakupo shifted his weight to his elbow, and the dim light from the fireplace fell on both their bodies. Kaito saw both their hands joined around their sexes, and his twitched. He had never seen anything this erotic in his life. He bit his lip.

The spirit that had been looking at his lover’s expression groaned his name in want and kissed him, letting his weight rest on him. They were both panting hard together, their hips moving with the same growing urgency, their strokes pulsing with the same need.

“Gakupo!” cried the human. The name came to him naturally.

“Yes, come for me… Kaito.”

He did. Hot wetness stained his stomach, and a long moan came from his mouth. He felt his lover shiver next to him as well, saw the pleasure on his face. The spirit crumbled and collapsed on him in a heap, panting. His flesh was as hot as human’s flesh now.

It slowly dawned upon Kaito that he had done it, finally done it, with a man. If he wasn’t insane before, he was now, or at least everyone in the village would tell him that, but it didn’t matter. As long as he could dream, laying there with his lover, it wouldn’t matter. He was happy. The frost spirit was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, and they were laying together like lovers.

“Don’t let me out yet,” groaned the latter against his neck. “Don’t put me back in the winter.”

Kaito picked up the pendant in the shape of a snowflake that rested on his chest. “But aren’t you a frost spirit? Don’t you like the cold?”

“I shouldn’t mind it; I am a nature spirit. Whatever the season, I become it. But winter… I have been longing for someone like you for years. Someone I may be with… it only gets worth when it is cold.”

“A nature spirit… Is it natural for nature spirits to have two men loving each other?” The question ended with a murmur, as Kaito was embarrassed to ask. He had been taught that such urges were shameful, and so he had kept them quiet his whole life. He had never felt the urge to act upon them until now, yet it had felt so natural.

“It’s not important for us,” said Gakupo. “We are in communion with all that is around us; it’s like we are making love to all of nature already with our mind. What man believe is of little importance to us when we are being guided by what is right for us.”

“Oh…” That didn’t help Kaito to understand, but it looked like he wasn’t going to have any other answer.

“Do you regret this?” The spirit rose to his elbow, his intense purple eyes looking into the human’s. “I forgot about what your religion says—I forgot everything when I felt your need.”

Kaito thought about it for a moment. “I don’t regret it. Not yet.” He pulled him down. “But stay with me like that.”

“Wait a moment,” said the spirit, and a handkerchief appeared in his hand. He wiped both their stomach as their waist was fresh, and then it disappeared as it had come. “There.” And he pulled the covers over them and rested against the human, and nothing could have felt more natural.

“I could fall asleep like this.”

“Then do. Rest, handsome Kaito, and don’t let anything trouble you.”

The human closed his eyes. And while he was distracted by the weight of the spirit against him, the tickle of his breath on the nape of his neck, how their legs were woven together so intimately, he slowly slipped under without noticing that he did.


	2. Visit at Miku's

The pale light of the morning was what woke Kaito in a cold, empty bed. For a second, he was puzzled that this surprised him, and then he remembered last night, the spirit coming to him and the pleasure they felt.

It couldn’t have been any other thing that a dream.

He left the bed quickly, his cheeks hot with shame. It was one thing to see spirits and claim that they were real, but quite another to think about another man in this way. He thought that he had guarded his heart from those feelings a long time ago, but he had been wrong. The devil was tempting him again.

His only saving grace was that it had all been a fantasy. Such beautiful creatures did not seek to court people like him, that raised sheep and cows for a living. Never had a spirit expressed any sort of interest in him before anyway, so why should they now? That was what Kaito told himself, over and over, because if it would have been real, he wouldn’t have known how to deal with himself.

He scrubbed the remains of the night away with a wet rag before getting on with his day. He fed his sheep and his cows with some hay, and took care of every other necessities that needed to be taken care of before even preparing something for himself to eat. The animals came first: his father had made sure to teach him this while he was still alive.  

It was after lunch that he remembered that his sister had extended him an invitation to come and visit any time he wished during winter, and it was early enough in the day that it wouldn’t be dark by the time he came back. He had stayed cooped up all along for too long if he was starting to have dreams like he had had last night. It was this thought that prompted him to put on his thickest boots and his

He put on his thickest boots and his warmest coat, but when he headed outside, he found the empty bowl he had left out last night. It stunk of fox. Surely the little rascals had found it and eaten it all. Why had he started to try and see that frost spirit again in the first place? Had he been lusting for the creature all this time? If that was so, then maybe the dream had been sent to him as a warning. He now knew that it wasn’t only curiosity that had guided his hand in this. Wretched, devilish desires!

Guilt for his shameful actions followed him all the way to the door of his sister’s house.

Born from two simple people that lived off the mountain’s bounty, she had been lucky when she had caught the eye of the richest merchant in town. She now lived with all the comfort one could dream of, and hence couldn’t want anything more in life, or so Kaito told himself. The happier he had ever seen her was when she had held hands with Tom, the backer’s son, when she came back from the fair, and her brother had never seen her smile like that when she was with her husband. Sometimes she did when she was with her children, though.

Their maid, Gumi, opened the door for him, and for a moment she seemed to not recognize him. When she did, she gasped and told him that he looked changed, before she let him in and called for her mistress. She recommended that he stayed quiet for the master was ill and needed some tranquility before going to look for Miku. He took out his coat and boots and waited.

“Oh Kaito—Oh my god, you _are_ pale, like a ghost,” said Miku when she appeared at the top of the stairs. She gathered her grown and flew down the steps to hug him. “And you are freezing! What are you still doing here? Come near the fire. My husband is asleep upstairs, he caught a cold but nothing too bad I recon. How are you?”

“I’m well.” Kaito followed her to the main room where his nephew and niece were playing quietly near the chimney. “It is good to see you all. You look in good health, Miku.”

“And I am glad for it. Rin, Len, now, don’t be shy and come say hello to your uncle while I fetch Gumi. Gumi! Where did this girl go—Gumi, a warm tea for Kaito!” Miku flew out the doors, her beautiful blue hair fluttering behind her.

“Sit down, uncle Kaito,” commanded four-year-old Rin. “We are having a tea party.”

The man sat down on the blanket spread on the floor, next to Len, her twin brother, that had not yet summoned the courage to say a word; he couldn’t even look up from his knees. The children both wore matching white and yellow outfits and seemed in perfect health. Kaito was glad to see them doing so well.

“I have not been presented to everyone here,” said the man as he looked, in all seriousness, to each of the pushes around the small tablecloth that represented the tea party.

“Ah! then I, as the house mistress, shall present each one of them properly,” said Rin in a ceremonious tone, clasping her small hands together like her mother did when she had something important to say. “This is Len, my brother. Sometimes, he talks, but not as much as everyone else here.” She continued by enumerating all the names she had given to her toys, and then ended with: “We are all very glad so see you here, uncle Kaito.”

“It is an honor to be present among such eminent company,” said Kaito, using the most complicated words he knew of.

“Ooooh, do you hear that mister Cuddles?” She said, grabbing a teddy bear plush that could rotate its arms up and down – a marvel that must have come from the big city and cost as much as one of Kaito’s sheep. She imitated a deep man’s voice as she spoke in the place of the toy. “Mister Kaito is a very important duke and he uses difficult words. What do you think, mister Len?”

“Isn’t Kaito a sheep keeper?” asked the soft-spoken boy.

“Nonsense!” Rin stood up, waving her arms. “Kaito is a duke. He’s going to marry a _princess_!”

The newly appointed duke was very amused, but did his best to hide his smile and take a duke-like expression.

“Oh,” said Len. “I didn’t know.”

“Lord Len, how many times do we have to tell you that it is a very important tea party?” said Rin in her manliest voice, waving around mister Cuddles in her excitement. “We are all very important people! That is why we can do whatever we please, when we please. You must agree!”

“Rin, keep your voice down, you are going to wake up your father,” said Miku as she came back in the room.

Rin sat down.

“Kaito, may I speak with you for a moment?” continued the blue-haired girl to Kaito.

“But mother,” protested Rin. “He was playing with us!”

“I will send in Gumi instead – princess Gumi. Now don’t act like a spoiled child and play with your brother in the meantime.”

Miku turned around and left the room. Understanding that she was expecting him to follow her, Kaito got up and did just that, meeting Gumi on his way to the kitchen.

He found his sister sitting near the fireplace, waiting that the water for his tea would boil so that she could pour him a cup. He sat on a stool in front of her, grateful for the privacy. He missed the time where it had been just her and him, living up in the mountain.

“You know, Kaito,” she said, not looking at him. “Lately, I have been worried about you.”

“How so?”

“I don’t know… I had dreams. I know it’s silly to believe dreams, but they made me think about you, and then as I thought about you, I started to see things that are _not right_. Not that you are a bad person, I know that you are not better than anyone. But—” she stopped and fretted with her skirt, realizing that she might be jumping in the subject a little too quickly.

“What sort of dreams did you have?” asked Kaito, knowing that Miku would come back to what she wanted to say eventually.

“Oh, nonsense, really. You will laugh when I tell you!” She looked up but her smile looked fake. “For example, last night, I dreamed that a man came to you, and that after you became very sick and died because you had done forbidden things.”

Kaito’s blood froze. This looked too much like his dream for him to feel comfortable about it. He forced a smile on his face, a smile just like hers. “That is ridiculous. I wouldn’t do—no, not with another man.”

“Isn’t that silly nonsense?” she said, and she laughed nervously. “Dreams, I tell you. Surely you had your folly when you were a young boy, but now you are a grown man. Besides, that is not what I really wanted to tell you, but you distracted me with your questions about silly dreams – as I was thinking about the you in my dream, I understood what really bothered me. I know we have talked about this before, but you must marry – I am married already, and you are the older brother! Surely you must see how this can’t be right.”

“Must marry?” Repeated Kaito, astonished. “And why is that?”

“Oh, I know that your situation isn’t the best for that. You are a shepherd, not the richest of men, but there are some girls that are in need of a husband around here. You could even get one pretty enough to match your looks if you wish.”

“My looks?” Kaito laughed, relieved that his sister would say such nonsense – as she used to when she was small. This was a conversation he could handle. “Sister, I am not you.”

“Of course, you are not, but I hear the women that are still unmarried and there is more than one that wished that you had a larger fortune, that they might consider you a perfect match. If you don’t aim too high above your station, you should find someone that pleases you, whatever you might be looking for. Do not spoil your youth while you still have it.”

“Now you are talking like mother used to,” he said, and shook his head. “No one has caught my eye. I never even heard of those women that you speak of that think that I am so fancy.”

“Because you haven’t looked around properly! I will help you with that when spring comes back, if you wish. I’ll invite some women for an afternoon, will get them in the habit of coming over, and so that we may sew and talk together, and you, you can come when you have the time, let some village boy keep your sheep for the day, and carve some wood. I’m sure that there must be one that will meet your fancy! Would you like that, brother?” She seemed excited by her matchmaking plans, her earlier unease forgotten.

Kaito was at loss for an answer. He knew that he would never desire a woman in the way he could desire a man. The passion he had felt last night – in a dream – had been intense and all consuming, but he couldn’t even begin to imagine a woman in the place of Gakupo. He would never act upon his desires towards men – or so he told himself – but he couldn’t fool himself in pretending that he would find this sort of pleasure in a marriage.

His sister was expecting an answer from him.

“I would love to, Miku,” he said. “Getting to know new people is always a pleasure for me.”

“Oh.” She stood up and clasped her hands together. “Oh, that is good. I am glad that finally you are doing what is expected of you, Kaito, I really am.” She paused, hesitated, before she continued. “But really, there is one thing that I wish for you above all things, dear brother: that you find love. Like I did. It is the most wonderful feeling you can ever experience.”

Somehow, he knew that she wasn’t talking about her marriage and that saddened him, but he didn’t let it show. He longed for the days where she would have told him about how she missed Tom, or those were he thought that he was safe when he told her about his darkest desires. Alas, they were both adults now; all this belonged to a past that was better off forgotten.

“The water!” She suddenly cried. “It’s hot. There, let me prepare a tea for you. You still look awfully pale – I hope you are not going to catch a cold like my husband. With all those dreams of you dying or leaving that I get, I would be worried sick if you were ill!”


	3. Of Sin

He stayed longer at his sister’s house than what he had originally intended. After their talk, it was like a weight had been taken off Miku’s chest, and she somewhat appeared closer to her old self, as if the perspective of her brother being happy brought some color back in her life. They discussed many little things, and when they had nothing more to say Kaito played with his nephew and niece in the snow. It was only the thought of having left his animals unattended that pulled him away from their company, and he did so with regret.

He arrived at his home while the sun was slowly disappearing behind the mountains, and seeing that the herd he cared for was properly settled for the night made him work until it was dark. When he was done, his only wish was to be able to slip into his covers and rest undisturbed until the morning light.

That was not to be.

He was walking the short distance between his stables and his house went a powerful gush of wind made him stumble and almost slip on the packed snow. A chuckle, so deep it made heat poor in Kaito’s stomach, resonated in the chilly night air. The human whipped around to face the newcomer.

Gakupo stared down at him, looking amused by his prank. “Good evening,” he said in his cool, levered voice.

Kaito gasped in shock. “You! You are—”

Real. Everything that had happened had been real. There was a rush of heat to the human’s cheek, and then he paled when he realized how sinful were the desire flooding him at the mere sight of the nature spirit. He looked away quickly from Gakuro’s bare chest and the shiny silver pendant that drew his eye.

“I see that your morals caught back with you,” murmured the spirit, leaning over the human. “And yet, I still want you. Do you still want me?”

Kaito felt his face burn bright once more. He was looking at a patch of undisturbed snow on the ground but he could feel his dark, hungry eyes on him. The other radiated a presence that made him shiver with want and he hated himself for being this weak.

“Those are desires of the devil,” muttered the human.

“God and the devil are only concerned with the doing of men,” replied Gakupo, reaching to gently stoke Kaito’s face with a gloved hand. “I am no man.”

“Yes, you are. I saw it.” He did not stop the spirit’s hand, not even when it slipped down his throat and fiddled with the collar of his hood to expose his neck.

That reply made the nature spirit laugh. “Well, in this sense, I am. But I didn’t see you complain about that last night.”

“I thought it was all a dream.”

“And why can’t it be a dream now?”

“Because…”

“Dream with me, Kaito. Forget what the others expect from you.” Gakupo’s lips were a breath away from Kaito’s ear, making him shiver as his words ticked its shell.

Maybe it was true. The world was harsh and cruel; sisters didn’t get to marry who they loved, brothers didn’t get to love at all. To think that something, for once, could go accordingly to one’s wishes was impossible. So maybe this could only be a dream… those sensations, those wants, all of them would have no consequences.

Tentatively, Kaito’s hands slipped against between the spirit’s strong back and his coat. He could feel tight, strong muscles tense and relax under his touch. He looked up into the purple eyes of the being, who smiled at him, and the next thing he knew they were kissing. The spirit’s lips were soft and almost warm, so soft that when they withdrew the human felt dizzy.

“Last night was too rushed,” said Gakupo. “I’ve barely kissed you. I’ve regretted it.”

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” replied Kaito. “I...”

“The rules of men are unfair, sweet one. Do you see anyone here that will stop you?”

The human glanced in the direction of the village, that was hidden behind the trees. He thought of his sister and her plans for spring. He thought of that poor girl he didn’t know yet, meant to wound up in a loveless marriage with him.

“The only one stopping you is yourself,” continued the spirit when he saw him hesitate. “If you wield now, no one would never know.”

His warm lips tickled the skin at the juncture between Kaito’s jaw and ear, making him gasp. Strong arms circled around the human, supporting him as his knees were growing weaker. All that was the devil’s temptation, he thought, but if this could damn him, he was already condemned. 

“You’re shivering,” said Gakupo. “Let us go inside.”

“You make me shiver.” Kaito’s gloved hands tightened on the spirit’s wide back and huddled closer to his chest and the fur coat closed around him, as to protect him. “Yet you are not cold.”

“I’m always cold in winter.”

The human shook his head. “Now you are not.”

Gakupo seemed confused.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Kaito. “Maybe being near the fire will warm me more.”

The spirit blinked, taken aback, then smiled at him mischievously. The human cried out in surprise when he was suddenly lifted like a bride on her wedding day and carried towards the house as if he weighted nothing at all. The door flung open before them when Gakupo used his wing powers, but gently closed behind them as Kaito was set down, pushed against a wall and kissed again.

This one was more insistent than the first. His lips were drawn in and sucked on, and then a tongue pushed against him. He knew of this sort of kiss, so he opened his mouth for it and closed his eyes, tasting the sensation. Gakupo grunted in pleasure, his hands holding his human’s wrists against the wall.

Kaito broke the kiss when he felt the need to breathe – and realized that he was already half hard. He looked down in shyness, unable to meet the other’s hungry gaze. He was still ashamed of how much he wanted this. A hand under his chin made him look up into dark yet luminous purple eyes.

“Is something the matter?” asked the spirit.

“We...” Kaito glanced around at his small living space. “We are not sitting near the fire.”

He was lifted again, but this time Gakupo wasn’t holding him other than with his powers and the grip on his wrists. A blanket flew of the bed and spread in front of the stove and some candles came on. Kaito gasped and looked at the spirit with a renewed wonder. He was such a powerful creature it made one wonder.

“Are you the devil?” Asked the human before he could stop himself.

“The dev—“ repeated Gakupo before he had to stop himself to laugh. It was deep, sexy and there wasn’t anything in it that sounded evil, save for the weird heat that pooled between Kaito’s hips. “No, I am not. I was once a man just like you.”

“What?”

“Yes. Although it was a long time ago, before this religion that calls men bad for liking other men came to this land.”

Kaito was mind blown. He wanted to say that there never was a time before remembering that there must have been. “How did you become a spirit?”

Gakupo’s face expression became distant as he seated himself next to the human, as if he was trying to remember something. “I think it was during a dream. A wonderful dream at the start of spring.” He smiled and leaned in, caressing the other’s thigh. “But I will tell you about it later, if you want.”

Kaito felt a pulse in his lower stomach as his blood rushed down. His dick found itself compressed against the front of his breeches, yet he couldn’t bring himself to free it. He was ashamed still, and at the same time he felt the irrepressible urge to reach out to the other, to feel him against his skin. He was torn between those two feelings and so didn’t do anything.”

“Is something wrong?” Asked Gakupo as his long fingers worked on getting Kaito rid of his coat.

“Nothing.”

That reply made the other smirk deviously. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“What about this?” He cupped Kaito’s bulge, making the human bite his lip to hold back sounds. Gakupo’s thumb rubbed on the captive length as he smirked. “I think that I am starting to notice a pattern here. Why do you keep trying to hide from me that you are aroused?”

Kaito looked away in shame. It was hard to come up with the words he needed to answer with the other touching him there. His hand was delicate as his skilful fingers massaged him through his clothes, but they didn’t help the melting heat that was pooling between the human’s hips. His breeches grew tighter, yet he didn’t push the other away.

“Denying it won’t make it leave,” whispered the spirit, leaning in closer. “What are you scared of?”

Kaito shook his head. The hand was pulled away immediately and the human whimpered when his length throbbed needlingly.

“Why did you stop?” He asked, looking up at his supernatural lover. “Don’t—“

“You are not certain of what you want. I am not going to take the risk of forcing you.”

Kaito bit his lip.

“You know you would make things so much easier if you were clear with your intentions,” said Gakupo, amused. “For you, and for me. You’re being mean right now.”

“Mean?” repeated the human. “I’m not, I just don’t know...”

“Yes, you are. I want to love you but I’m not going to touch you until you know what you want, and you are not making it easy for me.”

Kaito glanced down, and saw that the spirit was just as hard as he was, his own length trapped in tight pants – and had probably been like this the whole time. He felt new wave of heat and desire rush through him. He remembered the sight from last night, both their dicks pressed against each other, and wanted that again. He reached out for Gakupo before he knew it and the spirit leaned back to allow access.

The hardness was hot, even when felt through the cloth. Kaito messed with the pant’s opening, his trembling hands popping one button at the time. This, at least, he could do because he was in control and didn’t have to think about what was right or wrong – he was simply doing it to please a gorgeous man. He felt Gakupo’s hungry gaze rest on him as he worked, heard a soft moan when the length was eventually freed.

He then did what he would do to himself: delicately, he held the length and stoked it. The being moaned again, this time louder, and his hips bucked a little, before he reached down and put a hand on the human’s, stopping him.

“I want to do it with you,” he said quietly.

This put Kaito on the spot. He looked at Gakupo, his pale, almost shimmering skin that was flushed red all over his face and shoulders, then down his taunt chest all the way to the trail leading to his rigid length. This was the sort of stuff that aroused the human, no matter how soft and beautiful women could be. If it was so wrong, why didn’t the urges leave already? He was tired of fighting them.

He sighed and reached down to his breeches. The moment he started to untie them, he found the nimble fingers of the spirit helping him impatiently and this made him blush a deep shade of red.

“Are you sure you want this?” asked Gakupo.

“Stop asking questions,” said Kaito. “I shouldn’t want this.”

“But you do.”

Kaito’s length was freed and the former sighed in relief. He was feeling good – but it felt even better when soft lips pressed to his own, pushing so that he would open his mouth. The human allowed himself to forget about everything else as they shared the kiss.

A hand glided down Kaito’s chest, making his shiver, and pushed him back so that he would be laying on the blankets in front of the stove. Long purple hair fell like silky curtains around his face as he looked up at his lover. This felt right.

“You are the craziest thing I did in my life,” he murmured.

This made the spirit smile. “Don’t fall in love,” he said.

“I’ll try,” and he pulled him down for a second kiss.

The latter was soon broken as Gakupo started to undress his lover. He must have used magic, because Kaito found himself naked sooner than expected. He wanted to hide himself from sight but he didn’t, remaining still as the spirit seemed to admire him. The silence only made the heat grow stronger.

Gakupo leaned in and started to trail soft kisses down Kaito’s stomach. The human gasped when he realised where this was going and got up on his elbows to watch as the spirit placed his lips on the tip of his length. A quick tongue dated out, making the head bob once, and Kaito moaned from the show and the sensation. Encouraged, his lover held the base of his dick to steady it and opened his mouth to start sucking on it.

Gakupo had told him, on their first encounter, that there were many things that men could do among themselves This must be one of them. Kaito found himself closing his eyes to enjoy the sensations of a slow tongue running over the hole at the top and the ridge at the underside. The mouth was hot, and that heat was travelling down his length to pool in his lower stomach. His hands found their way into purple locks, just to have something to hold on to.

Gakupo chuckled against him, and then bobbed his head a little. He loved hearing his lover cry out, it pleased him greatly. As he kept sucking on the head of his sex, he stoked the length that was still exposed and felt Kaito’s fists tighten in his hair as a response. The grip made tiny needles of pain erupt under the skin of his scalp but that only gave a sharper edge to his own arousal.

He pulled away, a string of saliva connecting the tip of the sex to his lips, and looked up at Kaito, that was sending him a confused, needy look. Maybe his guard was down and he would accept his own feelings, hoped the spirit as he crawled slowly crawled up. The way the human couldn’t get his eye off his mouth, mesmerized, was almost too much for Gakupo, urging him to come closer and kiss him fiercely.

Their bodies were flushed together, and so were their arousals. Kaito’s accepted him close, with no more reserve whatsoever; he even murmured his lover’s name in his ear, with a need that made Gakupo shiver in want. Hands trailed down their bodies in unison and found the place where the heat gathered between them.

The spirit inhaled sharply and arched his back when his balls were cupped softly and played with. His hips bucked, seeking friction: after having stalled the contact for so long, the timid touches were making him shiver. He heard his lover gasp at his reaction and suddenly there was something wet at his nipple.

“Kaito—“ he gasped.

The only thing that answered him was a tongue that started to play with the nub. It was Gakupo’s turn to slip his hands in Kaito’s hair to hold him close, as he fell victim to the waves of tender pleasure that washed over him. It had been a long time since the last time anyone had touched him in those places.

“I want it all,” he said.

“What?” replied Kaito, stopping for an instant his kisses on his chest.

Gakupo did not reply, and instead he turned to the coat and started to look though it. He found what he was looking for in one of the inner pockets – a small bottle full of an oily lotion, the only thing he took in prevision of the night with the human.

“What is that?” asked the human as he wrapped his arms around his lover.

“Lube. That is the only way we are going to make things fit smoothly.”

“Things fit smoothly?”

“You’ll see.”

Gakupo got a generous ration on his hand, and then spread it on Kaito’s cock, that approved of the gesture with a moan. He then took the human’s hand and put some on his fingers, which got him a puzzled look from the latter. The spirit smirked at him and kissed his brow.

“You will see, I think that you will like it.”

Gakupo got up on his knees with his legs spread, before taking Kaito’s wrist and guiding it between his legs. Hesitant, the human slipped his fingers along the way until he found they came across the tight puncture of Gakupo’s ass, and when his hand was stopped his eyebrows shot up.

“But that’s your butt!” he exclaimed.

“It’s fine, I don’t eat so nothing has come out of there for a long time. Put one finger in.”

“But I...”

“Please,” begged Gakupo.

Kaito’s lips tightened briefly as he obeyed. He seemed surprise to see that he was able to put it in. He glanced at the bottle of oil, then his own lubbed dick, and seemed to make the connection to what was coming next.

“I’m going to put my...” he asked, but couldn’t bring himself to finish.

“Yes. If you want to.”

“Will you like that?”

“I’ll love it if you prepare before, like you are doing now. And you will too, I think.”

Kaito nodded before he started to push in and out slowly, getting his finger deeper and deeper in him with each thrust. He marvelled at how hot it was in there, his initial disgust gradually fading.

“Try to— ah, there is a place,” said Gakupo. “Towards my front, try pushing on the side of— Ah!” The spirit arched his back a little, and it seemed for a moment that he was about to fall over but clung to Kaito’s shoulders so that he wouldn’t. “That’s the place,” he added once he was sure that he wouldn’t fall over.

“What— are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine. Try to remember where it is and aim for that.”

The human obediently started to massage that point only, making the spirit gasp and moan under the assault.

“No— have pity on me,” said Gakupo. “That’s too – too much, I’m going to come too soon if you...”

There was something addictive about seeing the spirit squirm in delight, but Kaito obeyed – against his own wishes – only to receive the weight of the other against him as he slumped on him.

“Try adding a second finger now,” demanded Gakupo.

The human obeyed and his lover’s breath became heavy, peaking sharply when that secret spot would be brushed. The spirit murmured some more guidelines, and Kaito found himself scissoring him until he felt the tightness relax around his digits, if only by a little; he then pulled away and Gakupo aligned himself with his length.

The spirit had been right: Kaito knew he was going to love it the moment the head pushed in and intoxicating heat assaulted him. He thought that would be the best part, but he was wrong: looking at Gakupo’s face when he managed to strike that one spot was the best. His long lashes fluttered and he bit his lips as a small moan erupted in the back of his throat. It was a stark contrast to the cool yet passionate demeanour of their first encounter, yet still him and just as beautiful, if not more. Kaito wanted to see all of it and relish in it.

Gakupo lift and dropped himself on Kaito’s dick while pleasing himself with a hand on his sex. He seemed lost in his own pleasure yet perfectly in control of what he was doing. By contrast, the human barely seemed to know what was going on expect that this was the best he had felt in his life.  

He was truly damned. What a filthy sinner he was!

The thought caught Kaito by surprise, not so much from its content, but because he felt his arousal hit a new high. He wanted Gakupo too look down at him and shame him for what he was doing, for enjoying putting his dick in his ass, but he had no idea what words he could use to ask for it. He bet that the spirit would look very hot while doing it, with a wicked, triumphant smile as he told him just how disgusting he was.

The image was a flash to him, but it was intense and made him moan his lover’s name. A hand came down to play with one of his nipples as a response, long nails picking at the bug until it was erect and throbbing before moving to the other. Kaito looked up at Gakupo through his lashes, his flowing hair dancing around his face at the pace of the wet smacks of flesh against flesh between them. The soft light gleamed on his skin. He was beautiful.

The pace grew quicker and quicker, making the heat in between Kaito’s hips grown and ache. Hands gripped and pulled, becoming frantic, pants grew heavier. A name was whispered between gasps, and then there was a release. A sheet of white briefly fell in front of the human’s eyes as hot semen splashed on his stomach.

In the end there only was quiet panting as the two men drew close on the blanket. The only think Kaito wanted was for this moment to drag on forever, so that he may never start thinking again about all of that, or maybe that some of the piece in him may leak into his everyday life.

But just as he wished that, guilt came back to him, creeping and insidious. There was no way he was going to be forgiven for such a sin and the only thing that was left for him was to rot in Hell.

But then again how couldn’t he enjoy this? Gakupo’s weight on him felt reassuring and grounding, and he was incredibly warm. Kaito just wanted the pestering thoughts to go away now that they had gotten him through his orgasm, because he needed sleep. He would have to get up early tomorrow.

Would he wake up alone again? Somehow, despite the fact that he shouldn’t be wanting this, Kaito founds himself clinging to Gakupo, not wanting to see him leave – again. He wanted it all to be a dream, something only shared at night, but at the same time he didn’t.

“Is something the matter?” asked Gakupo, shifting so that he would be looking at his lover’s face. “You’re holding to me as if I was going to be blow away.”

“Nothing,” replied the other. “Just... thoughts.”

The spirit moved off him so that he would be resting on the sheets next to him, his head propped up on an elbow so that he could have a proper look at the human’s face, but their legs stayed intermingled.

“I hope you are not regretting this,” said Gakupo. “I told you that there isn’t anything to worry about.”

“But I sinned.”

“And you are scared that it will taint your soul? That’s what you are talking about?”

Kaito nodded.

“That’s not how it works,” replied the spirit in his softest voice, caressing his lover’s face. “Things that break your soul are bad things, like murdering someone, or anything that causes others pain. Did I cause you pain?”

Kaito shook his head reluctantly, heat coming to his cheeks. If anything, he had felt the opposite of pain.

“And you didn’t cause me pain. In fact...” Gakupo’s voice dropped to deeper, more seductive tones. “It was extremely pleasurable, and I enjoyed it. A lot.”

This didn’t help the case of Kaito’s cheeks, which made the spirit laugh.

“I didn’t cause you pain, and you didn’t cause me pain,” he continued explaining, “and no one needs to know that we did anything.”

“But... It’s bad. Evil.”

“So? People do bad things all the time. As a spirit, you get to see all kind of things. You would be surprised by what an unhappy wife with two children might do when her husband isn’t watching. And you know what? I think that what she does is far worth than what you just did, because her husband does love her. Sometimes, sad things happen, Kaito, things that are much more important than us two being together.”

The human didn’t know what to say to that, because it didn’t sound true. He was just a poor shepherd in a small mountain village. Gakupo seemed to know so much more than he did, sounded righter than what he had heard his entire life. Was it really that bad to lay with another man? He wasn’t quite sure now that he thought about it. He stopped listening when it came to that part during sermons.

He didn’t realize that he had been dozing off until he felt Gakupo clean the both of them with his wet towel. He wondered how the magic that the spirits used worked. It looked like something really practical to have and wield. Would his life be easier if he had some?

A hand came around him to gently stoke his back, soothing him further. Kaito looked up into luminously purple eyes.

“Is it really that bad when you lay with me?” asked the spirit, worried. “I’ll stop coming if that means that you have to feel terrible afterwards.”

“I... it doesn’t,” confessed Kaito. “I just don’t know what to do.”

That seemed to amuse Gakupo. “It’s the first time that you have a relationship like that?” he asked.

“Yes.” With both men and women. He had never felt the need to try and see what would happen should he try his luck with a woman, none had interested him. One single girl had kissed him once during a summer festival, but then she had never mentioned it again and so had he.

“Are you scared?” Asked the spirit in a deep whisper.

“Maybe.”

Kaito drew closer to his lover’s chest, nestling against him. He was tired, and all he wanted was to forget.


	4. Everything Will Be Fine

He woke up at the break of dawn, right as Gakupo was leaving his arms. Kaito had slept like a stone the whole night, and his limbs were still heavy with sleep: he didn’t manage to produce much more than a grunt when he was gently kissed on the brow. At some point, the spirit had pulled some additional covers over them, and the nest that they had created was still warm from both their bodies.

He noticed that the fire had died out, but he thought it to be still warm in his house. Maybe the weather was getting warmer already? He was more than willing to save up some wood, so he didn’t make another fire and left it at that. He would make another in the evening.

He had to take care of his animals, so he rose shortly after, but the other was already gone, leaving once again nothing but memories. Kaito, however, had more peace in his mind than the day before. He knew that others would disapprove of his choice, but at the same time it was a choice that he had made and so far, he had gotten away with it with no consequences. It was an odd feeling, and a position he had not been in before, and so he remained contemplative of all the possibilities throughout the day.

 He knew that it was bad, he knew that he must feel guilty, and yet... he didn’t. Not as much as he could. Maybe. Was there even a certain cap of guilt one needed to feel when they sinned?

For the first time, Kaito was starting to realize that his life was controlled by rules he had not known where there and that he could go against them. If what controlled him was if he would get caught or not, what stopped him from doing what he wanted?

And every second moment, he would think of Gakupo and the pleasure he would make him feel. He couldn’t wait for the evening to come so that they might enjoy each other’s company again. There were things he wanted to talk about with him as well.

Just as if the guardians of time had heard his wishes and had decided to go against him, the day seemed to be even slower and boring than normal winter days. As Kaito prepared a batch of ice cream, he found himself looking outside more than once to check if the sun was going down yet – not to avail. He wondered what the spirit was doing during the day that was so important that he had to leave – spending all of his feel time with Gakupo seemed like a delicious perspective indeed.

What he hadn’t expected was for his sister to come for a visit.

She showed up in the middle of the afternoon with her maid and her two kids, knocking on his door. Bored, he had laid down for a moment, and his first thought was that Gakupo had decided to come to him earlier than expected. It took quite a bit of will not to see his smile drop when he opened the door – not that he wasn’t happy to see his family, but seeing his sister was like a slap in the face, and all the guilt he had managed to shove away to the furthers reach of his mind came galloping back.

She also seemed taken aback when she saw him, staring straight at his face in shock as both his nephews jumped in his arms with a happy cry. He found himself lowering his eyes under her stare, yet unable to imagine what she saw.

“I didn’t expect you at all,” he said, leading them in. He looked into his main room and noticed that all his blankets were still on the floor in front of his fire – he went to pick them up quickly as if they could bear visible traces of his past sins.

“I thought that I could be the one coming over, for once,” she said. “The children were bored. Are you okay, Kaito?”

He sent her a puzzled look. “I am feeling great. Why?”

“You are as pale as a ghost.” She reached out to his hand but pulled it back when she touched it, as if it had burned her. “And you are freezing! Your whole house is freezing. Are you sick?”

Kaito was more and more puzzled. Rin and Len, a little worried by the words of their mother, sought shelter behind her, looking up at him with questions in their eyes.

“I don’t know what to say,” he managed to utter. “I’m feeling fine, and it’s quite warm in here. It’s so warm that I didn’t bother lit the fire again when it was out. It’s been like that since this morning.”

“This morning?” She cried. “Kaito, do you have any idea of the weather? It’s the dead of winter?” She knotted her hands together in worry. “Oh, my dreams, my dreams...” she muttered, but didn’t elaborate in front of the kids. “We need to get you out of here. Pack a bag, you are coming back with us to our home.”

“Miku, I am fine,” he said. “Look, feel.”

He reached out to touch her cheek, but it was his time to jump back from the feeling of her: she was boiling. He stated down at his fingers and was surprised not to see a burn mark there. What was going on?

“You are colder than a block of ice,” she said as she started to go through his cabinets, looking for a bag. “You are coming with us. And wear something a little thicker than that, you are making me nervous just by looking at you.”

“Mom,” shily asked Rin, “is uncle Kaito okay?”

Miku turned to her daughter with a smile. It was a little tight, but she was doing her best to appear unworried.

“He’s fine,” she said. “He just caught a little cold. Why don’t you two go down and tell Gumi to prepare the guest room? Uncle Kaito and I will be there in just a moment.”

Rin seemed too worried to want to leave, but Len eventually managed to pull her towards the door, wanting out. Kaito watched the leave, then started to pick out some clothes to wear and some others to put in the bag.

“I’ll pay Tom to come and take care of your sheep,” she said. “Right now, you need some rest in the middle of people that care for you and some peace. Is that everything you need?”

He looked at the pile of clothing he had shoved in his bag. He did feel fine, so he couldn’t picture himself staying more than a few days at his sister’s. “I think that I will be good with just that,” he said.

 

The way down was quite short, but Miku kept asking him if he needed to rest or if they needed to get more clothes for him. She would touch his forehead with a worried expression on her face, muttering to herself about how cold he was: her touches like scorching smears on his skin. He didn’t comment about it, lost in thoughts, and didn’t say much more as he was introduced in his sister’s home and brought to a room that felt like a cooking pot the moment he set foot in it.

He was given some hot tea and put to bed, and every member of the household came to cast worried looks on his laying form from the door. The only one that seemed brave enough to approach him was Miku, that kept fretting and insisting that he drank, but Kaito couldn’t even hold the cup. She eventually concluded that it was better that he rested, and left him there.

Left alone, he could finally start to hear his thoughts. Of course, the first conclusion he drew was that this strange sickness had to be tied to Gakupo. He had never heard of such a weird sickness that, instead of a fever, he started to freeze, and it had never happened to him before meeting the spirit. He thought back to him, how he could stay in the freezing cold with no shirt on, and that only strengthened his conviction that he had to be right.

He should have listened to what everyone had always told him from the start. He should not have been so foolish as to think that he knew better than generations of religion, generations of people knowing that sleeping with men was terrible. Was he going to die for his sins now?

He was starting to feel bad, but maybe it was the heat of the room getting to him. He didn’t know. The hours ticked by as the sound of the pulse in his ears slowly increased. He tried to kick away the covers, but that didn’t cool him the least. At some point, he fell into a deep sleep filled with confused fever-induced dreams.

He was awoken in the evening by Miku bringing him a bowl of soup, and while he took one look at it and felt his stomach growl, he had to decline it. He couldn’t even bring himself to approach his hands from the scorching hot liquid. His sister insisted, pleaded even, but not to avail. Eventually, she left it on the table on the side of his bed: all he had to do was to wait for it to cool down now.

“If you need anything,” she said, standing near the door, “just call my name. I’ll be down the hall. We are going to go to bed now, but I sent someone to get the doctor, and they said that she would come tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Miku,” he said, sitting up. “I... I’m touched by all you are doing for me right now.”

She seemed to want to add something, but she didn’t. Instead, she only looked at him for a long time, as if she wished to engrave the sight of him in her mind.

“Good night, brother,” she said to him.

“Good night, sister,” he replied.

She stared at him a moment longer before reluctantly closing the door.

“Miku?” he called.

She paused, then came back in the room. “Yes?”

“Come closer.”

She shyly complied, sitting on the chair near his bed.

“Is something the matter?” she asked.

“Are you happy?” he said.

She seemed surprised that he would say that. “If I am—well, of course, I am. I have everything I could ever desire, beautiful children, a doting husband, and not a worry about tomorrow. I am happy.”

Kaito lowered his head. “I know that I was among the people that told you that it would be best that you marry him, rather than your first love. I’ve... always regretted it.”

She laid a hand on him, and he looked into her face. Her smile was sad, yet there were not trace of rancor in her soft blue eyes. They had the same eyes, both of them, blue, wide and dreamy; it was something they had always shared, that marked them as belonging together.

“There is nothing to regret, Kaito,” she said. “I have a home now. Lucien... couldn’t have offered me that, love couldn’t have brought food on the table, would have never made him any less of a stranger, and I couldn’t go and live on the road with him. That was just how things were meant to be in the end, and it’s best to not think too much about what ifs.”

Her brother nodded slowly. “Do you love your husband?” he asked.

“He loves me,” she said, and that was enough.

There was a silence neither dared to break until she got up from the chair, dusting off her dress.

“It’s best that you get some rest,” she concluded. “Tomorrow, the doctor will figure out what’s going on with you. And then it will be fine – you’ll be fine.”

“I will,” he said. “Good night, Miku.”

She nodded and left, and he was alone.

As soon as he was sure that she wouldn’t be coming back, he stood up and padded over to the window to open it. The cold air of the evening swept into the room. He breathed in deeply, feeling, for the first time since he had entered the house, free. 


	5. Quiet Talking

Having slept the whole day, Kaito was wide awake when he felt a light wind stroke his thigh. He knew that it was Gakupo before he even turned his head from the way he felt his desire coil in his lower stomach. But he couldn’t indulge himself with carnal pleasure this time, no matter how beautiful his visitor might be.

Although the task might be harder than expected: the moon shone behind the spirit, framing his broad, bare shoulders with a pale, silvery halo. Kaito’s inner conflict must have been made apparent on his face, for the purple-haired man tilted his head and chuckled lightly.

“Were you trying to hide from me?” he eventually said, raising from the side of the window sill and taking slow steps towards Kaito. “You could have found a more creative hiding spot than your sister’s home.”

“She brought me here because I am sick,” answered the human.

This made the spirit pause. “Sick? What is the matter?”

“She said that I am cold.” Kaito rose his hand to look at it. “But I think that she’s the one that’s boiling, and everything inside her home burns me.”

The little color that existed in Gakupo’s cheeks drained out.

“You have something to do with this,” continued the human. It wasn’t a question.

“I... I didn’t think that...” He breathed in and regained his cool composure. “I did not think that it would happen at all. Your Passing, that is.”

“My... my what now?”

“Remember when I said that I was once a human?” Gakupo took a step forward and sat on the chair that Miku had just left. “Well, when I was one, I was just like you, with the ability to see spirits. You have to be born with it. That’s the reason why I was able to become a spirit, and that is the cause of what is happening to you now.”

Kaito was stunned. Become a spirit? That was something he had never even considered in his life – or maybe he had when he was small and more prompt to dream about impossible things.

“How... why that’s impossible,” said the human. “People don’t just become... is it too late for me? Am I going to become a spirit? And how did that happen? Was it because we...”

“Yes,” said Gakupo. “I would have never thought the process to be so quick, I thought... well, that it would be over before we would start to see any consequence to it.”

“But... my sister,” said Kaito. He took a deep breath – he was starting to panic, and that couldn’t be good. “My sister, she won’t be able to see me when I become a spirit. I’ll be like, dead to her. I can’t do that!”

“Relax.” The purple haired man rose his hand to quiet the human. “It will not happen unless you want it to. But for it to come this far, you must have wanted something similar in the first place.”

“What do you mean?”

“For starters, we nature spirits are in synchrony with the seasons, as I think I told you already. Right now, I am cold to any human’s touch, or anyone but another nature spirit’s touch. You never complained about it now that I think about it.” He frowned, remembering something that had occurred the day before. “You even told me that I was warm, yet your sister thinks that you are cold, just like you would be if you were... like me.”

Kaito gulped. “But she can see me, and she can’t see you.”

“That is because you have not completed your transformation, and for that, you need to leave your body of flesh behind.”

“What?” gasped the human. “I don’t want to die! Gakupo, please, stop this transformation.”

The spirit smiled and shook his head. “You aren’t dying, and I cannot stop it anyway. It depends entirely on your feelings. You wouldn’t be changing like you are if you weren’t ready for it.”

That only calmed Kaito a little as he reconsidered the situation. “But I don’t want this. It would be leaving my sister behind.”

“Is that the only reason why you don’t want to pass to the other side?”

“How come this is even happening?” said Kaito, skipping the question. “I never heard of that before.”

Gakupo shrugged. “Of course you wouldn’t have. You don’t even realize how wide the world is. This is a process that’s called Passing,” he explained. “And it’s only for those that have predispositions to magical powers... in other words, people like you. You could have become a wizard, but that’s not the way you chose to manifest those powers.”

“That’s ridiculous,” interrupted Kaito. “All wizards are evil. There is no way I would have ever become one.”

“People think the same thing of men that are attracted to other men, and yet you are not, as you put it, evil. You out of all people should know that things aren’t that simple.”

“I...” The human didn’t have anything to say to that.

“But that isn’t the real question here. You asked me before why this was happening, and I’ll answer that now: the moment you came in contact with me, you used it to start to abandon your human nature. You don’t want to keep living like that anymore.”

“That’s ridiculous! I don’t want to leave. What would my sister do? I’m her only family left.”

“Are you sure about that?”

That quieted Kaito as he looked into himself. Did he want to go on like this his entire life? In the last three days, he had finally started to do what he wanted and that had been like a tremendous weight lifted off his chest. Thinking of going back to the way he lived before was almost unbearable. Never experience the joy and the intimacy he had felt with Gakupo? Being trapped in a marriage with some poor girl to quiet all suspicions? Could he deceive and hurt someone in that way?

“Something that I know about Passing,” added Gakupo quietly, “is that the people that truly, deeply care about you will know that you are all right. My siblings... when I did my Passing, they knew when I was in the room with them, even when they couldn’t see me anymore, and I could talk to them in their dreams. I never had access to anyone like that, unless we were related by blood.”

“Why did you pass?” Asked Kaito. “You told me that loving other men was okay at the time you were a human.”

“But being a wizard wasn’t.”

Kaito wanted to know more but didn’t know how to ask, so he stayed quiet until Gakupo sighed and went on.

“It was something that had started one or two generations before mine, this... repulsion, and it came from a cult that was living in the land where I came from. They started to make distinctions between black magic and white magic, what was good and bad. However, I came down from a long line of wizards, and I wanted to practice. I convinced my grandmother to teach me, but I was careless and didn’t realize how dangerous this cult was until they burned her at the stake.”

The last line was delivered in perfect indifference as if Gakupo was talking about someone else. Kaito was shocked by the story but only gasped, not wanting the other to stop.

“For the longest time, I blamed myself for it. I was miserable because if she had not been teaching me, she wouldn’t have carried the traces of magic that gave her out. And they were suspicious now; they realized that if she had been practicing that probably meant that she had someone else with her. They started to probe around my family. I couldn't bear the thoughts of the others getting hurt, so I gave myself in.

That night, however, I escaped from them by giving myself into my spirit form, fleeing from their clutches... their judgments, their ideas. I found my grandmother on the other side, she had been waiting for me and looking over me as a ghost – sadly she had not managed to escape them in the end, but she had stayed to tell me that it wasn’t my fault. And then she left.

I thought that exacting revenge on them for what they did would be immensely satisfying, that they deserved to be wiped out, and so I started to turn the nature against them. I used my newfound powers to unleash landslides and bad cultures on them and their people, and in return, they attacked me with their white magic. Sometimes they would win, sometimes I would win, and it went on, and on...” he sighed. “For many, many years.”

“And then, you stopped? They died?” asked Kaito.

“They all died at some point. I’ve lived to see three generations of people in this cult. I’ve lived to see it expand and prosper, and then I lived to see it being wiped out by another, stronger religion, carried by the legionnaires of a great army. And then I realized that I had been alone all along.”

“There were no other spirits?”

“Oh, yes, there are many others. Some chose to go and live in the spirit world, and some others still stay around this one, but because of the path I had chosen, as the enemy of men, they kept their distance. They didn’t change their habits afterward.”

“You must have felt lonely,” softly said Kaito.

“Felt? I still stand alone. It was always like that, and it will always be so. One grows used to it; it’s not that bad.” Gakupo smiled. “Unless you think that you will be the one that breaks that solitude?”

“Well...” knowing that what the spirit was asking was whether or not Kaito was going to get through with the Passing made the latter hesitate. He didn’t want to decide just yet, even if he couldn’t deny that the idea of being free of all prejudice, able to do whatever he wanted, was tempting. And scary.

“It’s okay if you aren’t sure,” continued Gakupo. “The choice, in the end, remains in your hands.”

Kaito nodded but wasn’t convinced. “How can I stop changing into a spirit?”

“You will when you don’t want,” said Gakupo. “That is not a problem.” He stood up.

“Wait, where are you going?”

“I think that it would be best if you were left alone now.” The spirit looked over his shoulder, back to him. “You are unsettled right now. It’s best for you to be left alone.”

Kaito got up from the bed. “Wait, no!” He said. “Stay.”

“You are scared,” the other answered, turning to him fully but leaning against the edge of the window, a movement away from escaping. “To scare you was never my intention. Even if, once in contact with my magic, you rushed to become like me, now that you know what it implies...”

“But I want to become a spirit,” said Kaito. He paused, shocked that he had said that without thinking. But it was true. “At some point.”

Gakupo rose his brows and stood, stepping closer into the human’s comfort zone. The latter didn’t flinch. “Are you certain that you realize the consequences?”

“No. I don’t think that I would want it at all if I would.”

Something hard appeared in Gakupo’s face, something that showed a little of what sort of vengeful spirit he used to be, but then he softened, and he leaned closer with a sigh.

“Please don’t leave,” whispered Kaito.

“I won’t. That was cowardly of me.” He leaned further, and their foreheads touched. “You don’t have to decide now either.”

With his lover so close, Kaito wanted to kiss him, but he wasn’t sure of the consequences of such an act. Instead, he reached up and held on the back of the spirit’s neck softly. He was warm but colder than what he remembered from their time together. Maybe that was a sign that he was drifting away from Passing.

“Would you like it if I stayed with you?” asked the human.

“I would teach you about this my world,” replied the spirit. “And I would see that you settle in comfortably.”

This wasn’t the answer that Kaito had been waiting for. He looked away, breaking the contact, and pulled his hand from the other. “I will come with you in spring,” he said. “And this winter, I will say goodbye to my family.”

Gakupo took a step back. “You might find that to be too little time still,” he said. “You might change your mind.”

“Then I will.”

The spirit nodded slowly and seemed to think about something. He reached around his neck, to the shiny silvery pendant in the shape of a snowflake, and lifted it over his head. “Take this in the meantime,” he said. “You can give it back to me when we meet again.”

The metal was cold against Kaito’s skin when he lowered his head to receive it around his neck. It was also incredibly light – as if it wasn’t even there in the first place, as immaterial and wispy as the nature of its owner.

“If you do... think of remaining a human,” said Gakupo. “Use it to remember the time we spent together.”

Did that mean that the spirit wanted him to become one of them? Kaito wanted to ask but didn’t dare.

Instead, he picked up the pendant between his thumb and his index to take a closer look at it. The surface of the metal was engraved with tiny veins, reminding him of a leaf. The work on it was so delicate that it looked like something that had grown like that rather than the product of an artisan.

“It’s beautiful,” he said.

“Thank you,” replied Gakupo.

Kaito looked up into his face. He wanted to say more but what could he, when coming close to the other meant leaving his sister faster? He couldn’t read the spirit the spirit’s face or even guess his intentions. He wanted to believe that he cared even if he pretended not to, that he would be there for the human if he passed, that they might be happy together.

That they might fall in love? Maybe. Maybe that is what Kaito wanted.

“Will I turn into a spirit if you kiss me?” asked the human.

“What?”

“Kiss me.”

Gakupo hesitated, then leaned in ever so slightly, but Kaito was the one that breached the distance between them. Their lips touched and mapped each other before their mouth opened and their tongues moved against each one another. The first friction made Kaito shiver, and his breath stutter in need as desire awoke in the pit of his stomach.

His hands went to grip Gakupo’s shoulders, and the latter must have recognized that the other meant to get more than a kiss: he broke it and stepped back. His face was emotionless as his purple eyes met the human’s blue ones.

“We’ve already done too much,” muttered the spirit. “You don’t know what you want.”

“You are the one that doesn’t know what you want,” answered Kaito without thinking.

Suddenly the being’s eyes narrowed, and emotion finally came to his face: anger. “Enough.”

Kaito glanced down but looked back up just as quickly. “Tell me if you would want me to stay with you, then.”

“That is not the question.”

“That is my question.”

There was another silence as they held each other’s gaze. The human didn’t budge. He needed to know. He wanted Gakupo – how far those feelings extended, he didn’t know – but he had to make sure that he would be wanted back. That no matter how temporary it might be, he needed more of that happiness.

“I must have been mad to kiss you first,” muttered Gakupo.

“You said that you were lonely.”

“I might have been. I don’t know the answer to your question, lovely Kaito. I stay away from you during the day, but you are preying on my thoughts even when I am away. And at night... I try to resist you, to not go out and find you, but that is a fight that I cannot win when I know that you would accept me.”

“Gakupo... I need to know. Will you want me to come by your side?”

“My want has nothing to do with your choice.”

“It has everything to do with your want!” cried Kaito, before he remembered to be mindful of his voice and lower it. “I don’t want to be alone after I left my family behind.”

The spirit rose his hand and gently stoked Kaito’s cheek. His touch was chilly now, almost what it had been when they had first met. “Then my answer is that I will not leave you alone as long as you need me.”

“And if that need goes on forever?”

“Forever is a long time.”

“Will I ever have you say that you want me back?” despaired the human. “Why won’t you tell me?”

“Because I don’t know,” whispered the spirit.

It took Kaito a moment to understand what he had said, to let it sink in. “How can you not know that?”

“Kaito, I have been alone for a long, long time, and I have done many things – terrible things. I do not know if I can even want you in the way you are asking me to want them.”

“But we have...”

“The body and the feelings sometimes don’t want the same things.”

“I wasn’t talking about feelings,” said Kaito, but his eyes dropped to the ground as he lied.

Gakupo shook his head slowly. “You see? You are hoping for so much. You don’t know me.”

“I want to.”

“And what if you don’t like what you find? What will you do then? And you would have given up your life as a human and your family for this – for me?”

“I would be free.” Kaito looked back up into Gakupo’s face, determined. “I would be free from all those rules, and free to love you, or someone else, and go where I please. I can’t live on as I am now. My sister – she wants me to take a wife. People expect me to be a normal man, one that can’t see spirits, that will live his entire life lusting after some form of happiness that he can’t possibly have. I’ll never be able to love a woman the way I can love men, and even if I could, I will remain tempted by them. What will I do if I ever get found out? Kill myself? Let myself be killed? And see my sister suffer the consequences of being related to me, the abomination? Risk going to hell? But as a spirit...”

Gakupo nodded slowly, understanding. “So that’s the reason why you started to change this quickly.”

“Probably,” answered Kaito with a weak laugh. “But I know what I want now. If I decide to transform this spring, will you be there to show me the way?”

Gakupo smiled back. “If you do decide that, I will show you the way, yes, and we can be together like we were last night.”

The human found himself blushing at the perspective – the memories that rushed back to the surface made his limp cock twitch. “Then we will meet again this spring, after I have taken care of all my possessions – my herd, and written a will.”

“I suppose that there is no more talking you out of this?”

“Not a chance.”

The spirit chuckled. “I have not been able to answer your previous question, but let me tell you this: at least, I will look forward to your company.”

“You better,” replied Kaito playfully.

That response must have surprised the purple-haired man, for his eyes widened and his eyebrows shot up. “Or what?”

“Or... I’ll make you obsessed with me. More than what you already are.”

“Really? Do you think you have the skill for that? You’re so young,” said Gakupo, leaning in. “And virgins don’t exactly have a lot of experience in bed – although they can be irresistible in their own way.”

“I am a fast learner. A few more lessons is all I need.” Kaito also stepped closer, so close they almost touched.

“By the bloody will of the Allpowers,” muttered Gakupo as he stepped back, suddenly alarmed. “You got the temptation part down all right. Maybe it would be best that I left before we start waking your family.”

“Will I see you before spring?”

“It’s not likely. I will need all of my strength and time to prepare for your arrival. Some things need to be settled. Old debts to repay, if you will, things that need to be put aside and that don’t concern you.”

“What sort of debts?”

“The type of depts one gathers along the way when they get to live hundreds of years. Do not worry; I will be back for you. Keep the pendant that I gave you close.” He reached out and held the human’s hand. “When the time will come, I will know, and I will be there.”

Kaito kept quiet. Instead, he rose the other’s hand to his lips and kissed his knuckles. “Stay safe,” he whispered.

The spirit pulled his hand away and sat on the edge of the window. “Farewell, Kaito,” he said.

Before an answer could be worded, Gakupo turned around and fled into the night, his long coat a sheet of white in the darkness. Kaito watched him leap from rooftop to rooftop until he disappeared from his sight and then waited for him to appear once more, but he didn’t. After a while, being too cold to stand in front of the open window, he closed it and went back to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It might appear as such from the looks of this chapter (the sudden introduction of Gakupo's backstory and the sudden love question) that there might be a second installment in this series. There won't be, not for a while at least. I have a lot of trouble finishing a story that I started, no matter how short I plan it to be, and this was some sort of personal challenge for me. A second installment would make it unfinished, and I already have other ideas that I want to write about. 
> 
> In short: maybe one day I will continue this, but this is uncertain. Until then, you are free to speculate whether or not they do end up loving each other, or if they even remain together for all of eternity. I assume that speculating about what a character might or might not do is something that you enjoy, dear reader, if you like fanfiction.
> 
> I put this warning here because even if there is just one more chapter to go, it will be fluffy and predictable, or so I think it will be. I'll have it written soon, hopefully, and then I can finally claim that I have finished something, no matter how self-indulgent, slap that "completed" tag on it and call it a day.


	6. The Passing

 If he would look up at the top of the mountains, high above him, he would still see their snow-covered peaks, but spring had come to the valley. The snow had melted away, filling the rivers and revealing the growing grass under. The wing coming from the south became warmer with each passing day.

He had noticed that the stomach of some of his ewes was already starting to round when he sold them to a merchant he knew and trusted. He would miss them, he knew it, but his heart was made tranquil knowing that they would be cared for and that the money he had gathered from their sale would go to his family. That won’t replace him but did that matter.

He didn’t know how he knew that, but one day he awoke and knew that he was ready to go. He didn’t eat – he didn’t need to – sat down and wrote his will and a separate letter for his sister.

He had seen her yesterday, and she had talked to him about how the planning of those meetings with those other women. Some would even come all the way from next the nearest town just to go and hang out. She also told him that she planned on keeping those meetings going. She was often bored, and that seemed to be an excellent way to meet new people and spend time with them. With Gumi to watch after the kids while she attended, it wouldn’t be a problem.

He had smiled and told her that the only thing he could hope for was to see her surrounded by friends for many years to come. That had made her laugh.

In his letter, he told her everything about his desires in his approximate, struggling handwriting – he had never spent a lot of time learning how to write and read, his parents never being wealthy enough to pay for courses. He said that he was sorry that he had lied to her all those years, but that he was in a happier place now and that he wouldn’t be causing her any trouble. He knew that it would sadden her, but he hoped that she would understand. And that he loved her dearly, that he always will.

And then he had left his house, and had walked into the forest, looking for Gakupo.

He had not seen him since they had parted ways, but he was sure that the spirit would come. He had heard of things that made him suspect that, indeed, he had not remained idle the whole winter. There had been a snowstorm in one of the mountain’s passes, one that had raged on for a week straight in the most supernatural way, or so the shepherd had heard from the mountaineers that had attempted to pass through. He had also heard of a lake freezing down to its most profound depth, and of howls and screams in the forest that would chill the heart of the bravest traveler. He was sure that Gakupo was implied in all of that somehow.

He hoped that the other was all right. He had promised that he would be and that he would be there for him. Kaito would not doubt his word.

He came to an opening in the woods that he knew well, for having come here countless times before to play with his sister when they were small. The grass was soft and the morning sun was warming a moss-covered rock, on which he sat to wait for the other. Having nothing else to do, he pulled the pendant from his shirt and looked at it.

It had changed over the last weeks. The snowflake shape had turned, slowly but surely, into a flower bud, and it was starting to bloom. He was sure now that it was more than just a simple piece of jewelry, that it was linked to Gakupo’s very essence in an intimidating way. He was even more sure of that as Miku couldn’t see it – she would have noticed and commented if she would have seen him, a poor sheep keeper, wear any kind of jewelry, much less silver. He wondered if it had been lent to him as a sign of _some sort_ of affection, or if there had been more to if – to protect him from something?

He felt the wind on his skin, warm and soft like a breath of air, and rose his hair. Gakupo, having arrived unnoticed, stood a few steps away from him. Kaito jumped to his feet when he saw that his lover’s chest was bound together by bandages.

“I’m fine,” said the spirit before the other could rush to him. “I figured that the sight of bandages would be less shocking than scars, but I promise it’s all quite healed.”

“Gakupo!” Cried Kaito, dumbfound. “What... happened?”

“Nothing that matters anymore.” He shook his head. “I take that you still want to go through with this Passing.”

“Don’t change the subject,” said Kaito, waving towards his bindings. “You can’t just disappear for three months and then come back like that, and then tell me that it’s all fine and that it doesn’t matter!”

“Quit it,” ordered Gakupo. “This is my business and my business alone.”

“The snowstorm. Is that where you got those wounds?”

The spirit blinked once, slowly. “How do you know about that?”

“Other humans might be blind to spirits, but even them can see when something is wrong with the nature around them. I’ve heard rumors about the frozen lake as well. Who were you fighting? The spirits of the people from that cult?”

“That, and some others. But that is not where I got those wounds in particular.”

“Were you fighting for me?” asked Kaito, coming closer to him but stopping when they were an arm’s length apart from each other.

“I needed to make sure that no one would come after you because of your connection with me... at least for a while, so that you may grow into your full power as a spirit safely. I’ve chased away all that could be a threat. I used not to care about them because I was strong enough to fend them off should they want to resume their unfinished business with me, but I couldn’t allow my past mistakes to come to harm you.”

“Who is ‘no one’?” asked Kaito.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” replied the spirit dryly. “as I said, they are gone now, and I don’t want to think about it. The question now is whether or not you are ready.”

Kaito hesitated and looked back, in the human’s village’s direction. He was sure that he couldn’t think of anything more to do to make his departure easier on Miku, but he was quite sure that he wouldn’t regret that decision. “I am ready,” he said. “Show me the way.”

Gakupo crossed the distance between the two, and the human looked up in his eyes. He saw the pupils grow with desire, but nothing in the other’s behavior apart from that betrayed his thoughts. He guessed that his gaze was just as dark now, but he had waited too long for that moment to care about what he looked like.

“If you knew how to wield magic, you would know the way on your own, but you don’t,” explained Gakupo in a low, carefully controlled voice. “You are going to have to use me as a reference.”

“How do I do that?” asked the human.

“Feel me.”

The spirit leaned in and kissed Kaito. The kiss didn’t remain chaste for long; mouth opened and their saliva mixed. It was breathless and passionate. A strong arm came around the human and held him tight, lifting him to the ball of his feet effortlessly.

The spirit was warm, and Kaito held on that warmth like he was trying to soak it up through his skin. He remembered Gakupo’s passion the first time they had talked and then kissed, how his skin had become hotter as their lust had grown; he understood that he needed to follow the same path. He felt his powerful muscles against his body, felt his desire for him surge and glide like a seagull riding the wind for the first time. And this time he felt himself slip further from himself as his senses took over.

The being broke the kiss and murmured Kaito’s name in a low moan, soon echoed by the human’s whisper. He barely noticed that their feet weren’t touching the ground anymore, they were walking on thin air. He could feel the other’s magic around him, and he focused on it and one by one, he felt what made him human fade away. It was a strange, peaceful feeling that he couldn’t describe beyond that.

Everything was heavy, so heavy. His head fell back, and Gakupo gasped as he struggled to hold him up tight. His eyes closed, but all he could see was the light – beautiful, pure and serene, unlike any light he had seen before.

He could feel his lover’s arms around him, holding him back. He could also feel something slip off him, but it was such a light sensation that it was like a cloth of silk was sliding over his bare skin. He shivered and moaned at the feeling. From far away, he could hear Gakupo’s voice, but he couldn’t understand his words. His arms where the only thing he could feel.

Then he breathed, and it was like the universe was entering him through his nose. His eyes shot open and the sun, the color around him, blinded him, but he couldn’t close. He could feel the world live and pulse around him, entering him and filling to the brim. It was as if he had become a coursing river, water full of sensation rushing through all his senses, overwhelming him. He screamed, but it didn’t reach his ears over the sound of the universe existing.

Gakupo’s coat closed around him, shutting the sensations out until there only was him all around him. Quiet settled on Kaito’s soul and he could breathe normally.

“It’s all right, I got you,” whispered the purple-haired man. “Just keep breathing. You’ll adjust to the rest slowly.”

Kaito did so, and all he could feel was his lover, his body against his, his breath, the beat of his heart, his power – his immense power. It extended all around him, took its roots in the earth under them and reached into the sky, touched every tree, every strand of grass, every insect around them. Though it, the shepherd could feel the world as older spirit felt it, how he could feel the very essence of the wind that blew against their skin down to the caress of the sun against his skin, but he was still protected, they didn’t flood him as they did before. It felt amazing. Gakupo felt amazing.

He felt himself grow hard on the spot, his erection nestling itself against the warm body of the other. This made the purple haired man chuckled as his desire spiked. Kaito moaned wantonly. He could never have imagined that being a spirit could feel like that.

“You feel my essence and get this kind of reaction,” muttered Gakupo, leaning so that his lips moved against his lover’s neck. “That’s quite flattering.”

“You’re...” managed to articulate Kaito. He couldn’t think straight. “Everything. It’s entering me. You’re inside me!”

“Not yet, lovely Kaito,” laughed the other. “Soon enough. Let me look at you.”

He made a move to let go of him. Initially, the former human clung to him but understanding that no harm would come to him, he slowly let their bodies part. He noticed that he was entirely naked save for the silver pendant around his neck. He blushed furiously at that and tried to cover his erection, but saw that his hair down there had changed.

“Blue?” he said, dumbfound, reaching out to touch the oddly colored strand. Some bangs fell in front of his eyes, and he saw that they were the same shade.

“The curtain matches the drapes,” commented Gakupo with a touch of humor in his voice, “and your eyes. You are beautiful. Come.”

He rose a hand towards Kaito, and the latter took it shyly, still not entirely comfortable with the idea of being naked when the other still have pants on – even if he didn’t wear much else – but also finding it incredibly arousing. This train of thoughts was soon stopped when he noticed that he wasn’t the only one that had changed.

Gakupo looked as sexy as ever, but since the blue-haired man could see the world through the eyes of a spirit, he noticed that the coat he wore looked more like wings now, each feather of energy lightly fluttering in the light like the wings of a dragonfly. 

“You’re an angel?” asked Kaito without thinking.

For some reason, that brought a sad smile to the other’s face. “I just look like one; it’s just the shape that my power takes.”

“You are beautiful.”

“I should be the one telling you that.” Gakupo used his hold on Kaito’s hand to make him turn around, devouring the shepherd’s shape with his eyes. His gaze lingered on his erected sex a moment longer before traveling back to his face. The older spirit had trouble keeping his thoughts about the other in check, but he gave himself a mental shake and found the will to hold himself back a while longer. He then looked at something on the ground. “Even as a human, you were striking.”

Kaito turned around and said himself laying in the grass. It was the oddest thing, to see himself laying there with his eyes closed and one hand resting on his chest. He looked at peace – there was a faint smile on his lips. It was him, or at least it used to be him, and now he felt like a butterfly taking one last glance at the husk that had been its chrysalis.

He was dead, but looking back his life felt so dull and narrow compared to the one that laid in front of him. Some of the old sadness lingered, but it was ghostly, dust in the wind that would soon disperse.

“Do you wish to take a look at yourself now?” Asked Gakupo. “I know of a calm and clear pond where you can see yourself in the water.”

“Yes, please. Let’s go from this place,” he replied as he turned back to his lover.

He didn’t glance back as they left his old envelope of flesh in the clearing, to be found by whoever came along first. It didn’t matter.

They rose together in the air. He could feel Gakupo’s power again as it embraced his bare shape and lifted him higher. Kaito closed his eyes, overwhelmed by the sensation, and moaned shamelessly.

“You’re so sensitive,” whispered the older spirit in his ear as he passed an around his waist, holding him close. “I can feel your desire spike with every brush of my power.”

“You like it.”

“That’s an understatement. You are driving me mad.”

The knowledge made Kaito shiver in expectation as he cast his eyes down, but he temporarily forgot all of it as he saw the tip of the trees flashing under his feet at an unimaginable speed. They were walking on the wind! He gasped and couldn’t help but laugh in delight.

“We’re flying!” cried the blue-haired man. “Oh, this is wonderful. Gakupo, it’s wonderful!”

Without even waiting for the other to answer him, he escaped his hold and started to run, feeling the air current flex and orient him as he did. He didn’t physically feel anything under his feet, yet he did with... his mind? His sensations? He didn’t know how to name it yet.

“Kaito!” Called Gakupo. “You are going the wrong way.”

Kaito turned around and ran back to him without missing a beat, jumping right into his arms when he was close enough for that. The purple-haired man not only caught him but lifted him, twirling him around as his wings fluttered both of them. They laughed and fell in each other’s arms.

Kaito didn’t know much about love, but to him, this looked a lot like how a couple would act.

“This way,” said Gakupo. He was out of breath, but it wasn’t from the effort: his pupils were wide with desire and his cheeks tinted red.

Kaito had felt his gaze never leaving his body, could feel the desire the other wasn’t even trying to hide through their connection. He was starting to suspect that there was a plan behind this trip to the pond and he couldn’t wait to find out what it was. He could already see the clear surface through the trees. He turned to it, and Gakupo followed him down, placing one of his dark boots on the surface of the water to strand. Kaito found that he could easily do the same thing, but he was too taken by his image to care for this new miracle.

It was him, but at the same time, it wasn’t him he was used to seeing. His spirit self shared the same features than his human one, yet they were reflected to him with a luminous quality to them. His hair was indeed blue now, the same color than his eyes. He had never been the vain type, but he couldn’t take his eyes off himself unless it were to look at Gakupo by his side. If he had ever thought that such a beautiful creature wouldn’t be interested in him, now at least he could consider himself a little more in his league – even if there was a tranquil sense of raw power to the purple-haired man that the former shepherd simply couldn’t match. The latter didn’t even have an energy aura like the other apart from the one that glowed weakly from his pendant – Gakupo’s gift. He looked down at his chest at it and picked it up in his hand to take a closer look at it. The energy that pulsed from it seemed to wrap around him like a veil.

“It was protecting me this entire time,” said Kaito, surprised.

“I had to make sure that you would be safe.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

“To be honest,” whispered Gakupo as he stepped closer and wrapped his arms around his lover, “I wanted you to think about the times we had together rather than worry about the dangers I was protecting you from.”

Kaito blushed. He had indeed done that a lot in those last three month – and many of those times had been late at night when he laid in his bed alone. “It worked.”

“I know. It also allowed me to sense when you were thinking about me – let me tell you, that was both a blessing and a curse. You can’t understand how hard it can be to feel that you have come while calling my name and not come rushing to you.”

“You...” gasped Kaito. “Peeping Tom.”

Gakupo chuckled in his ear, his breath tickling its shell. “But now I get to see you. And you do too. Look down.”

Kaito did so, and he saw them both together with his lover watching them as well from over his shoulder. His cock had softened to a half-mast but started to grow again when he saw Gakupo’s bite his gloves off and reach for it, grabbing it firmly to stroke it.

“Spread your legs,” ordered the older spirit.

Kaito obeyed and gasped when he realized that he could see everything down there in the reflection. He suddenly understood why they went to the pond, and from there understood what came next; he tensed a little bit. Maybe Gakupo would take him inside like the last time?

“Don’t get all shy on me now, you know I wouldn’t hurt you,” reassured the purple-haired man as he let go of his sex to smear some oil from a cork all over his fingers. “And don’t tell me you haven’t been fingering yourself after what I showed you last time.”

“But that was only one finger... and I didn’t like the stretching.”

“It won’t hurt,” promised Gakupo. His hand stroked the inside of the younger spirit’s thigh, leaving a wet trail, and the puncture in Kaito’s ass twitched in anticipation. “You’ll find that spirits are a little more flexible than humans when it comes to their bodies.”

Kaito didn’t reply. Instead, he spread his legs further as a sign of consent. His lover’s finger was quick to grab the opportunity, pressing to his entrance and slowly increasing the pressure until it gave in, allowing the digits to plunge up into the heat. The shepherd tensed, anticipating a spark of pain, but it didn’t come. Instead, his flesh parted for his lover with ease, accepting it. It felt right.

Kaito gritted his teeth as Gakupo trusted a few times, watching his finger pump into him in the reflexion of the pond. The light, teasing brushes to his prostate only added to his excitement, and before long he was leaning back with a moan and pressing his butt cheeks to the trapped hardness in the other’s pants.

“Oh, you naughty little thing,” whispered Gakupo in his ear.

“Call me bad things,” muttered Kaito as a response.

“What?”

“Call me a slut,” repeated Kaito, his face burning red. He had been both dreading and anticipating the moment where he would reveal that fantasy of his. “Please.”

Gakupo produced a deep, aroused chuckle. “You like being called that?”

Kaito, as his sole response, grounded his ass against Gakupo’s cock and rubbed it, making his lover gasp in surprise. The older spirit pulled his hips back but the blue-haired man, using the mirror beneath them to see what he was doing, reached behind him and grabbed his lover by the crotch to resume the friction.

“Kaito—“ moaned the other in his ear. “You slutty little whore.”

Right as he said those last words, he pushed in a second finger and pressed down hard on the shepherd’s prostate. Pleasure made Kaito arch his back and cry out, and he kept moaning when the digits didn’t pull away but instead started massaging his weak point, no matter how far he tried to pull his hips away. Letting go of everything else, one of his hands flew to stroke his aching cock while the other gripped Gakupo’s shoulder for stability.

This seemed to compromise their stability, for he felt themselves tilt over and fall right after: they crashed through the surface of the water with a great splash. For a second Kaito lost all contact with the other as the cold maws of the pond closed on him, down to the fingers buried inside him.

But this only lasted an instant. He opened his eyes when he felt a warm body slide against his front and saw Gakupo’s face a breath away from his.

“Breathe,” ordered the older spirit.

Kaito did so without thinking and was shocked to find that the water filling his lungs didn’t burn him. “I’m breathing water!”

The smile on the other’s face widened, and Kaito looked down when he felt something long and hard press on the inside of his thigh. Gakupo had opened his pants and placed his hands on the shepherd’s hips to angle himself right, and right as his lover realized what he was doing the tip pressed to his entrance. The blue-haired man told himself to relax.

Penetration was uncomfortable at first, but far from painful. Gakupo’s hips did small circles to push in further without putting too much strain on his lover, but Kaito took it admirably well, and it wasn’t long before his desire took over. Ninety-nine days of the wait had been too long. He wrapped his legs around his lover and pulled him in, moaning when he felt the length deep inside of him.

“Naughty—“ gasped Gakupo. “You little whore, so greedy for my cock. You have no shame.”

Kaito felt his face burn from the words, but he was only aroused further. His back gently hit the bottom of the pond, disturbing the plants that grew there, but he wasn’t bothered the least. Even the water was starting to feel warm around the two of them, but the best sensation was the feeling of his lover trapped in the vice-like grip of his legs.

But he couldn’t keep holding him too tightly for too long. He had to release him a little for their hips to part, but it was only so that they could meet again. The sensitive bundle of nerves deep within Kaito throbbed with pleasure each time it would be brushed, making stars dance in front of his eyes and his fingers tense with each stroke. And when Gakupo would sheath himself completely in him, the thud reverberated in his entire body. He tried to push back, wanted to draw him in deeper, but it was the older man that lead the dance and Kaito was only starting to learn.

The blue-haired spirit looked up and gasped when he saw Gakupo’s face. He looked even more like an angel now with the light that came behind his head and his unbound hair floating in the water like a halo. Their eyes met, and he saw desire being reflected at him, desire and happiness. Did it matter if they loved each other when they already had this? That was good enough, that was so much more than what he had ever felt, Kaito decided. He was happy even as he knew that it might be too late to save his heart from this man. But he wasn’t scared.

A particularly hard thrust made him lose track of his thought as the warmth that pooled between his hips became the only thing on his mind. He called out his lover’s name and dug his blunt nails in his back. The dust from the bottom of the pond rose around them, and small, curious little animals came to see what they were doing, but neither of them seemed to care. The only thing that mattered was each other and their pleasure until they forgot the rest of the world and all that existed was the friction down south between them.

When Kaito felt like he couldn’t take it anymore, one of his hands shot down both of their bodies to grip his cock and stroke it. The last thrusts before his orgasm got him crying out Gakupo’s name louder and louder until he screamed as he came. He tensed and threw his head back in ecstasy, seeing white for a moment, yet could still feel his lover pound into him. It took him a few more thrusts to cum inside Kaito with a low, long moan, and then he collapsed over the other, panting heavily.

Kaito closed his eyes and enjoyed the feeling of the aftermath. He could feel the movement of small animals around them, the slight currents they produced, and the dust settling down, but they only registered as secondary. He was chest against chest with Gakupo, could feel the slow, content pulse of his magic coursing through him and around them. He thought that he could fall asleep like that, then wondered if spirits even needed to sleep.

He would ask his elder later.

Slowly, as if not to break the magic of the moment, Gakupo reached around his spent lover and pulled him upwards. They both spat out the water in their lungs when they breached the surface of the pond, taking in the fresh air in exchange, and rose over the water. They didn’t go far: they crashed on the first patch of soft grass in the sun they met and didn’t move from there.

“Welcome to your new life,” said the purple-haired spirit.

“Thank you, Gakupo,” said Kaito.

He closed his eyes, content. He felt an arm wrap around him to pull him closer, and that was how they both fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here it is, the final chapter. 
> 
> Thank you, dear reader, for coming this far. What would be a writer without readers? I hoped you enjoyed this fanfiction. If you have a little more time, I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments. Critiques, thoughts and suppositions are always welcome and would be of a great help to me. 
> 
> As I said in the last author's note, I do not know if I will write a follow-up for this story, despite it lacking the "two main protagonists love each other" trope you would expect from a "romance". I do have some other ideas for this ship though, set in other AUs, even if I don't know if I will get to work on them, as I have another project going on at the moment and I would like write a little more for that one before starting something else. As someone that struggles with commiting to a single story idea, finishing what I start is a big new year's resolution for 2019. We shall see if I can hold on to that one!


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